I don't think LN works the way you seem to think it works. Perhaps I'm the one misunderstanding it, but shouldn't you be able to send bitcoins to someone over LN that you don't have a direct channel with? I haven't kept up with the developments over the past 18 months or so, but the last time I looked at it there's no need to "transact multiple times between the same people" for LN to work well.
You don't need a direct channel with the person you send your coins to. The network will find a way over 1 or more intermediaries (let's call them that way) before it reaches you. But the longer the route, the bigger the transaction fees will be. Each node charges a base fee and a fee rate (percentage of the transaction being routed). These fees are small compared to on on-chain transactions, but still.
I think what TangentC was trying to say is that it doesn't make sense opening a payment channel with someone just to send 1 or 2 transactions. You pay regular fees for opening and closing the channel, so if you send fees only once, you would actually pay more than for an on-chain transaction. There are custodial wallets though where you don't pay any opening/closing channel fees because you will be using their own payment channels.